


The Castle

by chelseagirl



Series: Finding Home [1]
Category: The Alienist (TV)
Genre: F/M, Repairing the Damage, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:00:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25825528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chelseagirl/pseuds/chelseagirl
Summary: When the Howard Detective Agency gets a wire from architect Julia Morgan, summoning Sara Howard to California, Sara's past comes back to her.
Relationships: Sara Howard/John Schuyler Moore, Violet Hayward/John Schuyler Moore
Series: Finding Home [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892641
Comments: 21
Kudos: 74





	The Castle

**Author's Note:**

> I would have been fine if John and Sara had only been friends, as in the books. I would have been fine if they'd left it the way it was at the end of season 1. They made me want this relationship, and then the ending of season 2 of The Alienist did the one thing I hoped against hope it wouldn't do. So I wrote my version of what happened, after an interval.

1920

Bitsy Isaacson handed the telegram to her boss. “Don’t know why she couldn’t have phoned, like a normal person.”

Sara Howard smiled. “Long distance rates from California are pretty brutal. And Julia never likes to take advantage of her clients.” She looked at the wire. “San Simeon – that’s north of Los Angeles. Hmm, murder, mayhem, the usual. But why contact me?”

Bitsy shrugged. “Because you’re someone she can trust?”

Sara Howard, chief proprietor of the Howard Detective Agency, and Julia Morgan, architect, had a few things in common, after all – among them, being a woman in a position usually held by men. Although they didn’t know each other especially well, they had always had a fellow feeling for one another. “I’m trying to think of who I know on the West Coast who might take the case, but I can’t think of anyone. Not in Los Angeles, not in San Francisco. Maybe I should go. I haven’t been out of the city in awhile – a train trip cross country might make for a pleasant change of scenery.”

“Er, boss, only one thing.”

“What’s that, Bitsy?”

“Miss Morgan’s client might not be to your taste. It’s William Randolph Hearst.”

Sara was well-known for her self-control, so Bitsy wasn’t surprised when her employer’s expression didn’t change. “Well . . . I’ve never even met the man. I mean, I was at the engagement party, and the wedding, and after that, well, you know. We never actually spoke.”

The engagement party for Hearst’s goddaughter and illegitimate child, Violet, to whom her old friend John Schuyler Moore was now married. What went unsaid was that during the engagement, John had professed his love for Sara. That she admitted that she loved him, too, but that while she was trying to work through whether what she could offer him could ever be enough, when he wanted a home and family, Violet had cemented the relationship by becoming pregnant with John’s child.

“Sometimes I had stories for John, for the Times. But his wife liked him to be at home, when he wasn’t working, and we saw each other less and less.” And gradually it hurt less and less to see him, to know he had the home, the family he really wanted. John was so happy with his first child, and his second, and his third, while Sara’s agency was her joy in life. By then, they saw each other hardly at all. After all, there were restaurants other than Delmonico’s, and then Hearst began spending most of his time out West, communicating with his New York office via telephone and telegraph. While Hearst’s wife and legitimate children were hardly going to keep the company of his mistress, Marion Davies, he had no such scruples about his illegitimate daughter, Violet. “I’ve decided. I’m going.”

Bitsy shrugged. “If you think it’s best. Should I come along?”

“Don’t be silly, Bitsy. Lucius and the children need you.”

“The children are in high school, Miss Howard. They could scrape by without me for a couple of weeks.”

“No, I think this is a trip to make on my own.”

“All right, then. But before you go, Lucius and I would like to have you over for dinner. You could bring the professor, if you liked.”

These days, Sara kept company with a widowed classics professor from Columbia. They weren’t in love, but they got along well. It was nice to have someone to dine out with, and to attend concerts and theater together. It was nice to have, well, other things. His children were grown, and he didn’t have any expectations that Sara couldn’t meet. “That would be lovely. I’ll ring him – what time?”

That evening at dinner, Bitsy noticed that Sara was unusually quiet. She accepted a second glass of whiskey, and kept looking at the professor. Almost as though, if she looked away, he wouldn’t be there anymore. Bitsy thought that was odd, as the pattern with Sara’s gentleman friends was that they pursued her, and a select few kept company with her for a time, before being gently dismissed. The professor had lasted longer than any other, and Bitsy felt hopeful that he might be the one to endure.

It was a long journey, and by the time the train, the last in a series of trains, arrived at its destination, Sara had gazed upon more scenery than she thought she would ever need to see again. Frederick was encouraging her to have another go at Classical Greek, so she’d brought along The Odyssey and her battered Liddell and Scott lexicon. Somehow without him to discuss it with, though, she couldn’t seem to maintain any interest. That left her with a new book, which Millie had loaned her at the last moment, in case parsing dative cases or whatever it actually was called began to pall on her. _The Age of Innocence_ by Edith Wharton, out earlier that year. She’d have to pick up more books in English for the trip back – a nice thick history and perhaps a detective novel or two, so she could laugh at how easy it was on the page to do the work which was so painstaking in real life.

She wished she hadn’t read the Wharton, honestly, as the ending struck her as too close to home. Newland Archer, passionately in love with the independent, intelligent divorcee Ellen Olenska, in the end still marries May Welland, his conventional fiancee. At the end of the book, Archer is in Paris, and his grown son asks him along to the Countess Olenska’s salon, a coveted invitation. But in the end, Archer can’t bring himself to go, to see where the road not taken might have led him. And here she was, Countess Olenska, making her way to Archer’s home, instead.

Anyway, it was entirely possible that John and Violet might not be in residence at Hearst Castle. She couldn’t help but laugh at the pretentiousness of the name, but when she finally saw the edifice itself, she understood why it was called that. Hearst was such a windbag; even knowing him only by reputation (and that one demeaning toast at John and Violet’s engagement party), the whole thing seemed fitting. Honestly, Julia could do so much better than this. From conversations they’d had, Sara knew that her natural taste was exceptional. But then, when you were a woman, you had to take the work that you could get.

Of course he was there.

He hadn’t lost his looks, that was the first thing Sara reluctantly noticed. She and Julia joined the family for dinner. The way he held himself, those eyes, all the little things. But their time was long past, and the better for the both of them. He smiled, genuinely, when he saw her, and she wondered if Julia had mentioned the name of the agent she’d brought in from New York. He told her that the children were spending their summer on a ranch once owned by his old classmate and her old employer, Theodore Roosevelt. His son and his daughters loved nothing more than horseback riding. He emphasized that about his daughters and mentioned their educational plans as well as his son’s.

The second thing she noticed was that he was drinking again. Well, she enjoyed her whiskey, so who was she to judge him? But as the evening wore on, she noticed he’d slipped back into old patterns, drinking glass after glass. He was weaving a little bit by the time she wished the party a good evening.

It wasn’t until the next morning that she and Julia had a chance for a private talk.

“I’m sorry I summoned you all the way out here,” said her friend. “The head of my carpentry crew disappeared after a heated argument with the chief stonemasons and the man handling the electrical works. By the next day, he still hadn’t turned up, and I panicked. Mister Hearst doesn’t really like to get the police involved in anything up here, and the last thing either of us wanted was for the insurers to know. So I thought of you. But Dan reappeared just hours before you got here, with a pounding hangover and a black eye. Apparently he’d stormed off and gone on a drinking binge, but he’s all right now, and suitably apologetic.”

“So all’s well that ends well?”

“Your expenses will still be covered, of course. And you can stay with me for a week or two, if you like. Take a holiday, since you’re out here. The weather really is delightful, and I’ve got my own cottage on the grounds. I’m sorry about sticking you here in the Castle last night – we’d planned everything out, and then things happened so quickly.”

Sara looked around her. “If you’re absolutely sure, I could use a little time away from the city. And, honestly, to recover from that train ride. I hope there are some bookstores within reach, because I really need something for the trip home.”

“It’s a bit of a drive, but we’ll get you something to read, for certain. And I have stacks of those crossword puzzles, if you’ve ever tried them? Ever so absorbing, and they just keep piling up.”

“Have you read this one?” Sara asked, offering _The Age of Innocence._

“I just finished it. Such a pity, the choice that Newland Archer made.”

“Maybe May could give him something that the Countess Olenska couldn’t?”

“Really?” asked Julia. “For you, of all people, to say that.”

“A family, a conventional life. Many people want that, after all.”

“But we know better,” said Julia, looking out over the building that she’d designed, and to the scenic vistas beyond.

Sara smiled. “I suppose we do. For ourselves, anyway.”

Julia had a motorcar at her disposal and they decided to drive to the nearest town where Sara could find reading material. They found a restaurant that looked out over the water, and decided to dine there, and it was late when they arrived back in San Simeon.

Someone had been smoking on the porch of Julia’s home, leaving telltale signs on the ground. It wasn’t her brand, and Julia didn’t smoke. “Filthy habit,” Julia muttered, so Sara stayed outside while she smoked one of her own.

It was several days more before she saw John again. She wasn’t sure how much Julia knew, and whether they were being kept deliberately apart, but it was just as well, she told herself. They made expeditions up and down the coast in Julia’s motor. But on the third morning, Julia apologized. “There’s a new load of marble in that I’ve got to inspect. But Mister Moore’s agreed to drive you up into the mountains today.”

Sara wasn’t sure if she should accept the offer, but she thought it would be more awkward to turn it down than not, and she did want to speak more with her old friend. She wondered if Violet would object, but Violet had been scrupulously polite since she’d arrived, though their conversations had been brief and limited to commonplaces. She noted that Mrs. Moore, like her husband, had kept her looks.

John pulled up in a roadster which was much fancier than what Julia drove. He was sober, which boded well, though after they’d driven through some steep and winding mountain roads, he pulled out a flask and offered it to her.

“I’d rather not, and I think I’d rather you didn’t, if all the roads are going to be like this.”

“A reasonable request,” he said.

“Can I make another?”

“Anything. Well, nearly anything.”

“I’d like to drive myself, for a bit. If that’s all right – I don’t know if this is your car, or if it belongs to the Castle fleet.”

“It’s mine, but it belongs to Hearst, like everything else about me,” John said, shaking his head in disgust.

“But you’re still with the Times.”

“That’s the one thing I’ve been able to keep for myself. That, and my grandmother’s house, though of course Violet finds that insufficiently grand, so I rent it out.”

“John, if it’s not too intrusive to ask – when did you start drinking again?”

He looked at her sadly. “A month after the wedding. It was the family house at Newport – I just couldn’t bear it without something to soften things.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But the children?”

“The children are wonderful. Delightful, intelligent, independent, each one of them. Delphine just bobbed her hair – her mother is horrified, but she looks splendid. They’ve made my life worth living. That, and the Times.”

“I was thinking of bobbing my hair,” said Sara.

He nodded. “It would suit you.”

They sat silently, each smoking, looking out at the vista, until John suddenly said, “Shall we move on? There’s more I would like you to see, and we should be home in time for dinner.”

He let Sara take the wheel. The freedom of driving in the mountains exhilarated her – she rarely drove outside of the city, at least not further than the Hudson Valley or Long Island. Longer trips were by train. Over the course of the afternoon, they took turns driving, as he showed her his favorite views. They caught up on old friends and colleagues, but it was stilted.

“I was sorry it didn’t work out with Laszlo and Doctor Stratton.”

“When they got back from Vienna, Laszlo wanted to return to the Institute, and Karen was offered a very good position in Chicago.” Sara smiled. “She lives with a woman there, but her friend is very . . . understanding of their special relationship.”

“So I’m the only one of us to have married?”

“Well, Bitsy and Lucius have two lovely daughters, and a son who’s just been Bar Mitzvah’ed.”

“Almost the only one.”

“I suppose so.”

“And you?”

A hesitation. “There’s someone. But I’m not married.”

“Someone you love?”

“John, is that really your business?”

“I’m sorry.”

After a long silence, she spoke. “But no. I don’t love him. I like him very much, and he doesn’t need more than I can give.”

They fell silent again, for what seemed an eternity, but then, on the way home, John turned over the wheel once more. Sara felt the excitement of the wind rushing past, and the curves and turns of the road. She couldn’t concentrate on the beautiful mountain scenery as much as she would have liked, but right now, she just needed to feel. After one particularly tricky turn, she let out a cheer, and soon John joined with her, and they did that nearly all the way home.

Julia was available for the next few days, and resumed the role of tour guide, though they did have dinner in the Castle both nights. She chatted politely with John, with Violet, with Hearst and his mistress, Marion, and the rest of the company. And then it was time to go home.

The morning she left, she was surprised to find John, and not one of Hearst’s drivers, behind the wheel of the car that was to take her to the train. “I wanted to say goodbye,” he explained.

“I’m glad,” Sara said.

Once they’d pulled out of the Castle grounds, he said, “I saw you read that book, too. The Edith Wharton one.”

“It felt familiar,” she said. “But you made the right choice – your children, your home.”

“The choice was taken from me, as you might remember. But yes, my children.” He slowed the car down, and pulled off the road, at a scenic point. “Who are older now. One out of college, one finishing up, and one at boarding school most of the time. Rose would like to go to Vassar, like you did. Would you talk to her about it?”

“Of course. If that wouldn’t be uncomfortable for you. Or for Violet.”

“No.” And now he turned and looked at her, those eyes so sad and serious. “I’m going back to New York at the end of the summer. My tenant will be moving out of the house on Washington Square, and I’m moving back in. Violet is going to stay here in California, at the Castle. It’s what we both want.”

“I see,” she said.

“Sara, if you don’t love him – this other man – could there be another chance for us? I don’t want to make the mistake the man in the book made, this Newland Archer.”

She took a deep breath. “I . . . I don’t know. My work.”

“And mine. I love my children, and I am grateful to Violet for them. But she doesn’t love me, and I don’t love her. She's been seeing someone, to be blunt about it. For the past few years, now that the children are old enough, we’ve been discussing divorce.” He reached out, and put a hand on the side of her face. “All I want is to come home, at the end of a long day, and you’ll be there. Or perhaps you won’t, because you’ll still be at the office. But I’ll know you’ll come home to me, sooner or later. Could that be possible, do you think?”

“You’d be coming back to New York, either way? Not just for me?”

“It’s where the New York Times is, too. And the only thing I own that isn’t Hearst’s.”

“The children, would they resent me?”

“I can't know for sure, but I don't think so. They're very perceptive. I tell them stories about my friend Sara Howard, and the adventures we used to have. They admire you. Both of my daughters asked if I was in love with you. I didn't answer.”

“Well, then,” she said. “Maybe our time has finally come.”

As he dropped her off at the train, they kissed, just once. September would come soon enough.

_It’s more real to me here than if I went up,” he suddenly heard himself say, and the fear lest that last shadow of reality should lose its edge kept him rooted to his seat as the minutes succeeded each other.  
He sat for a long time on the bench in the thickening dusk, his eyes never turning from the balcony. At length a light shone through the windows, and a moment later a man-servant came out on the balcony, drew up the awnings, and closed the shutters.  
At that, as though it had been the signal he waited for, Newland Archer got up slowly and walked back along to his hotel. _  
__

_Edith Wharton, _The Age of Innocence_ _

Sara left the book on the seat at the station. It was a good book, and someone else might enjoy it. But she had hopes of rewriting the ending.

**Author's Note:**

> This is "permission to suck" day on Get Your Words Out. While I think the story is much better than that, this is me pouring out my feelings after very little sleep.
> 
> Towards the end of the book of _The Angel of Darkness_ , Stevie (who serves as narrator) says "despite all her talk about men's defects, she's actually taken the time to get herself mixed up with one or two of them along the way, though it's not for me to reveal the details of those experiences." It might be up to Stevie, but I've gone ahead, anyway.
> 
> And I kept pleading with the show not to go the full Edith Wharton _The Age of Innocence_ ending, but dammit, it did. Since Hearst Castle opened in 1919, and Wharton's book was published in 1920, I thought it would be appropriate to come back to Sara and John later in life. Remembering that Hearst Castle had a female architect was icing on the cake.


End file.
